Five years
by Pemphredo
Summary: Michael had returned to jail after Lincoln's exoneration but didn't get the sentenceeveryone was expecting.


**The first five…**

He thinks back to the first five and all he can remember is the waiting.

Waiting for the prison mail and the weekly snatched visits never quite sure who would come each time.

Waiting for anniversaries and birthdays and graduation days to come and go. Marking each of them on his calendar diligently, knowing he would never share the celebrations until after they had passed and all he would see were photos on a visitation table and mangled pieces of cake wrapped in foil.

Waiting in line for food, for clothes, for medication, for toothpaste from the commissary, for the chance to make rushed and painful calls to the ones he loved.

Waiting for pre-hearing meetings with his lawyers, for appeal dates to arrive, for Judges to pontificate, for Governors to make considerations, and a couple of times for Presidents to decide.

Waiting for the next fragile ray of hope then watch it being extinguished as lawyers shook their heads and failed to meet his gaze.

He waited because his only other option was to not wait and accept, and neither he nor the ones he loved could do that. So they all held their breaths, and refused to think of those first five years as anything but a transition, the inevitable period between Michael being inside and then outside.

The first five years were the hardest.

**The second five**

He stopped waiting, he now only occasionally ventured into the tortured state of allowing himself to think that 'maybe one day' . He knew the others were still clinging desperately onto each faint prospect of an early freedom.

The lawyers met with him less now and often it felt like a formality as they outlined another possible strategy, perhaps another appeal on a kink in the law. They all knew they were now just going through the motions. But Michael smiled and nodded in all the appropriate places.

Lincoln's misery was evident in his eyes and seemed to grow with each visit, as he clung hopelessly to the raft towed behind the good ship 'Perhaps'.  
"Perhaps your new lawyer could petition the Judge again?"  
"Perhaps the new Governor would reconsider your case?"  
"Perhaps the change of regime at the DOC might be good news Mikey?"  
"Perhaps the mid term results would persuade the President to make a goodwill gesture and free you?"  
Michael heard so many perhaps during those years, and each time they left Lincoln's lips his brother's face would brighten with hope but Michael always saw the hidden despair behind it. Michael smiled and nodded in all the appropriate places.

LJ grew into a man during the second five and unlike his father, joined his Uncle in the acceptance of his fate. He alone on his unfortunately rare visits made no attempt to pretend. They both knew Michael was going nowhere for a very long time and instead their brief time together was spent discussing his embryonic career as a journalist, his love life and the baseball. Michael liked LJ's visits they felt… honest, and he smiled and nodded in all the right places.

Sara had waited with him in those first years and many times had joined Lincoln in the 'Perhaps' game but Michael always found himself searching her face during those visits for the sign. The sign that she was finally letting go of him. That despite her anguished affirmation in the first few years that she would always be there for him, ignoring his protestations that she should not wait and that she should chase a new life away from him, from this. He watched and waited for the sign that she finally accepted he had been right, and her waiting for him, was over.

The sign when it eventually arrived half way through the second five crept in like a stealth bomber under the radar and deposited its payload of regrets and 'for the best's' during a series of visits over a month. Michael smiled and nodded during all of this and wished her well and silently sobbed as Sara walked out of his life for ever

The second five years were the hardest.

**The third five**

Michael was changing and not just physically. He felt he had finally grown into the con the other inmates had thought he was in the previous decade. His exploits at Fox River had always delivered a level of respect within the system that he considered undeserved. But that status had made his years relatively trouble free and now when he washed in the morning the face reflected back at him was of a middle aged con who had survived. His body attested to the middle age tag. He was flabbier across the stomach, but only slightly, there were faint lines around his eyes now and his hair was speckled with early greyness. His joints had started to ache in the mornings and reading glasses rested on the small desk by the bunks.

His place in the prison hierarchy was marked by privileges and signs obvious to con and CO alike.  
By his job, he helped out in the library, one of the easiest in the jail.  
By the cellies that he was given, always the young ones, always the ones that needed mentoring, so they could learn the rules they would need to survive protected by Michael's status.  
By his relationship with the bulls, he knew their names, their children's names, which teams they supported, where they went for holidays, he knew everything a drinking buddy would know except there was no drink. There was no buddy either, but years of listening and watching had built up Michael's database of CO knowledge.

He never saw his lawyers now, he wasn't even sure who represented him. His last lawyer had retired the previous year.

He never saw LJ, he was travelling constantly with his work, a sporadic trickle of cards from around the world helped track him. Then towards the end of this five he received a wedding invitation. He had laughed at this, at an act others might have felt was cruel but he alone appreciated the thoughts behind that elegant, gold embossed card. He sent his regrets the next day and demanded to see LJ's bride at the first opportunity!

Lincoln visited religiously, in fact Michael wondered sometimes if the trip to Statesville had become more of a pilgrimage for his older brother. A chance to genuflect at the altar of St Michael, to pay a penance to salve his guilt. Lincoln unlike Michael was not ageing well. His early years of too much booze and drugs and cigarettes had seemingly caught up with him. His skin was sallow, his breathing noticeably heavy, his eyes sunk further into his skull at each visit. They chatted about anything that didn't matter. Lincoln had finally realised this was not going to be a happy ending and his little brother was probably going to spend a long long time inside. This insight had wormed its way into Lincoln's soul and was slowly eating him away from the inside. Rarely looking Michael fully in the eyes, he never talked about his sentence, he just chatted about the times before Statesville. That after all was safe ground. Michael understood and saddened a little more each time he saw his brother slump onto the stool across the table in visitation. He didn't want to watch Lincoln slowly die of guilt in front of him.

The third five years were the hardest.

**The fourth five**

Michael wondered when he had morphed into Charles Westmoreland. Why hadn't he noticed? All that was missing was the damn cat.

He could see it in the eyes of the other cons, especially the young ones. They were in awe of him. Perhaps there was still the faint tint of fame that hung around him. New prisoners would eventually saunter up to him, casually trying to establish if he was 'That Michael Scofield' then mention some TV programme they'd seen several years earlier about the Fox River Eight escape and invariably ask about the tattoo and the money and so it would go on…  
His reactions would depend on his mood, and how he suffered from moods nowadays, perhaps another burden of ageing? Sometimes he would smile and close his book, taking off his reading glasses and let himself be interrogated by the wide eyed kid. Occasionally one reminded him of Tweener and that would chase the smile off his face.

But if his moods had overwhelmed him he would deny everything, and send them on their way with a brain searing blue steel stare, that hadn't been dimmed by poor vision and arthritis.

The small area of his cell wall allocated for pictures was now almost completely covered in photos. But a few were hidden, the colours now leeched out. They were of his life before prison, Lincoln holding LJ as a baby, Veronica's graduation, Lincoln with him in his new loft. They were the only reminders now of what he once had and they were private, they were not displayed, they were not for public consumption, they lived in a box and were brought out when he needed confirmation of the man he once was.

The other photos were his way of tracking life on the outside. Pictures of LJ ageing through the years. Now a father of two, living in London, a hot shot journo on one of the European news desks with an English wife and a weird taste in Christmas cards. He smiled as he viewed again the latest crop of pictures he had sent. LJ standing in front of another nameless castle with his two small daughters, his wife, elegant and smiling next to him.

But some days he turned his back to these photos, to the images of family he now knew he would never experience. He would never be a father, a grandfather, he would never know those emotions and on those days, imprisonment seemed such a cruel punishment. Because children are hope and they took that away from him.

There were a few of Lincoln, one of him in his new car, one next to LJ on a recent visit, but not many, and Michael regretted this when the news came though in the final year of this five that his brother would make no more visits. He had died from a heart attack and his sparsely attended funeral had been Michael's only trip out of the prison for eighteen years.

The fourth five years were the hardest.

**The Last Five**  
Forty years, the shock of hearing that sentence all those years before had never really worn off. Those numbers rolling off the judge's tongue had crushed into him and he had clenched his hands and reached for his lawyer's arm despite the cuffs and chains that restricted him, pure terror and incomprehension on his face.

After the hearing, down in the holding cells, his lawyer had tried to soften the blow. "Parole at twenty years, maybe even earlier Michael, and of course we will appeal…"

Now twenty years on Michael was facing the very thing he'd thought about for so many years. He was going to be released, parole granted, he would walk outside these walls in two days time, and he was terrified. He would be returning to a life that didn't exist any longer. His life was inside, he was a con, and he'd forgotten how to be a man.

The first twenty years had been the hardest.

Tbc possibly


End file.
